And now as we approach the second Sunday in Advent and are preparing our hearts for Christmas, we will light the Advent Candle of PEACE. We are keenly aware of a longing for PEACE in our world. Everywhere we look there is a need for PEACE that only God can bring about. We know that God is ultimately the Giver of PEACE, yet Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called the children of God.” (Matthew 5:9) One of the active ways that we can be peacemakers is through prayer. When we pray, we invite God to be at work in us and through us. As believers all around our world are praying for PEACE, God can initiate activity in each of us that will lead to PEACE. How will we recognize peacemakers if we meet them on the street? Peacemakers will not be trying to draw attention to themselves. They will often go about ways of making PEACE that will be quiet and hardly noticed. Peacemakers will invite people to consider forgiveness. Peacemakers will attempt to show people how to cooperate instead of competing or fighting. Peacemakers will work hard to bring understanding between people. Peacemakers will help people to release anger and bitterness. Peacemakers will welcome each new day as an opportunity to experience and to bring PEACE. Peacemakers will be determined and will not give up when there is resistance. As we rely on God to help us, any of us can be effective peacemakers. The intention is not for the credit to go to us, but rather for a profound awareness of God and God’s provision for PEACE to be recognized. All of these descriptions of a peacemaker remind me of Jesus. He is the One Who has shown us how to be faithful children of God by being peacemakers. This week, we will pray and trust God to guide us to be peacemakers who will be blessed and who will bring the blessing of God’s enduring PEACE. Please plan to join us for our WEDNESDAY PRAYER TOGETHER tomorrow December 6th at 1 pm.
Praying and trusting God for His PEACE to inhabit our hearts and for us to be His peacemakers, Pastor Lola
Our God Who has sent Jesus Your Son into our world to bring PEACE, we thank You that You can equip each of us to be peacemakers. This is a commitment that is demanding and so we look to You to sustain us in the effort required to be a peacemaker. Thank You for the PEACE that we have found in Jesus. We think of the ways that knowing Your PEACE inspires us to want to share Your PEACE with others. We come to you today to continue to pray for PEACE. We recognize that You have gifted us with PEACE in knowing You and Your abundant grace. We pray that those of us willing to be peacemakers will not be trying to draw attention to ourselves. We ask that we will be humble and wanting instead to draw attention to You. Please give us contentment in persistently being used by You in quiet ways to usher in PEACE. Thank You God that You have forgiven us. We see opportunities to invite people to consider PEACE as a powerful means of acting as peacemakers. Guide us we pray in demonstrating how to cooperate instead of competing or fighting. Reveal to us how we can build bridges of understanding. This will require people wanting to understand and we cannot accomplish this desire in people, but You can. We pray for Your love to infuse people in ways that will compel them to seek understanding and reconciliation. Where there is resistance in us to mend relationships or to admit how we have damaged loving communication with someone else, we look to You to make us examples of Your grace. It will be You enabling us to find PEACE with each other that will allow others to walk this same path of PEACE. Where we see anger and bitterness festering, we pray that we will not regard these circumstances as hopeless. On the wider world scene, there is such heightened anger and bitterness that could make PEACE appear impossible. We commit to continue to pray for PEACE when we find it hard to imagine how the damage done can ever be repaired. The miracle of Jesus’ birth that we celebrate at Christmas renews the promise for PEACE on earth. When this Holy Child was born, there was a promise for the possibility of PEACE that cannot be destroyed by hateful acts of sin and we want to remember that. We expect to see evidence of a PEACE that will spread from person to person as Your peacemakers are doing what You have called them to do. When people witness PEACE steadily taking over, it is our prayer that people will turn to You. It is our prayer that people will declare, “This can only be because of God”! Any small part that we can have in being peacemakers is a blessing. Any appreciation and praise that comes from being peacemakers goes to you. We pray that our dependence on You as Your children will grow ever stronger and that the impact of this dependence in a desire to be peacemakers will have a transforming influence that is widespread. Our God You have been a Peacemaker through Your Son Jesus, our Saviour and we want to follow in His footsteps of PEACE! May this be so. In Jesus’ Name, AMEN.